Sampling and data collection

In the empirical part of this study, three different datasets were used to answer the research sub-questions: the dataset of Finnish and Russian firms collected in 2013–

2014, the dataset of Russian firms collected in 2015–2016, and the global dataset of firms from 41 countries, which was used as a part of the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS 2016).

Dataset 1

To address the sub-questions on the individual and joint contribution of EO, MO, and LO to firm performance (Publication I), the differences in the EO-performance relationship in developed and emerging market contexts (Publication IV), and the EO–

performance relationship contingent upon organizational task environment (Publication V), the data on firms were collected from Finland and Russia in 2013–2014. The data collection was performed by a research group, including the author herself, at the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg University

Literature review, theoretical framework, and hypotheses development

RQ: When and under what conditions do strategic orientations individually and jointly relate to firm performance in different environmental contexts?

RSQ1 RSQ2 RSQ3 RSQ4 RSQ5

Data collection

Dataset 1 Dataset 2 Dataset 3

Data analysis and results

Discussion and contributions

(Russia). The samples of Finnish and Russian firms were obtained from the Amadeus and the SPARK-Interfax databases. To provide a broad representation of firms, privately owned SMEs from multiple industries and geographical regions were selected.

A majority of Finnish firms are located in Eastern, Southern, and Western regions, and most Russian firms are located in the Northwestern and Central regions as most economic activity is concentrated there. To test the effects of different types of strategic orientations on firm performance and investigate the role of organizational task environment, a standardized questionnaire was developed. The questionnaire included information about a firm’s EO, MO, and LO, different environmental characteristics such as dynamism, hostility, heterogeneity and munificence, firm performance, and firm characteristics (firm age, firm size, and industry type). The key respondents were companies’ founders and/or CEOs because of their responsibility to strategically manage firms.

Finland and Russia were selected as representatives of a developed and an emerging market based on their level of economic development. These countries are closely related to each other as they share a common border and have a long history of relationships and trading partnership. Yet, they are very different in economic, institutional, and cultural profiles, which create substantial differences in the external business environment firms operate in, and represent suitable settings for comparing a firm’s strategic behavior and its performance implications in these contexts. For this purpose, Russian and Finnish samples (104 and 117 firms, respectively) were separately analyzed in Publication IV. In Publications I and V, which did not aim to reveal differences between these countries but rather focused on establishing strong relationships that are held across different country contexts, two samples were pooled in one dataset, and an approach to ‘deculture’ data by standardizing it separately in each country was applied (Engelen et al., 2015) to help remove country-specific effects. The pooled dataset consists of 221 firms in Publication I and 163 firms in Publication V.

This difference is explained by data collection being in progress when Publication V was being written and usage of different approaches to deal with missing values, the choice of which was related to sample size considerations for data analysis. The majority of sampled Finnish firms are small and have between 1 and 100 employees, and Russian firms employ between 1 and 500 employees. On an average, Finnish and Russian firms have been operating for 18 and 11 years since their foundation, respectively. Finnish firms are quite evenly distributed across production and services sectors of economy, and over half of the Russian firms operate in the service sector.

Dataset 2

To address the sub-question on the effects of EO and MO during economic crisis (Publication II), the data on firms were collected from Russia in 2015–2016 when the country experienced a sharp decline in economic growth. The survey design and data collection were executed within a research project of Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg University and School of Economics and Management of Far Eastern Federal University (Russia) with the author’s participation. In 2015, the Russian

3 Methodology and research design 48

economy contracted by 2.8% as estimated by gross domestic product (GDP), the national currency depreciated by over 50% after a twofold decline in oil prices, and inflation rate reached nearly 13%, which led to a significant increase in bankruptcies among Russian SMEs (Federal State Statistics Service, 2018). The macroeconomic instability substantially elevated the levels of environmental uncertainty, complexity, hostility, and dynamism. These environmental conditions provide a rich context for examining strategic orientations in the unfavorable external environment of economic crisis, which creates emerging challenges and threats for organizations and indicates the need to quickly make strategic decisions.

For sampling Russian firms, a comprehensive procedure to generate a random sample was applied using a 13-digit Main State Registration Number (OGRN), which a company receives when registering with the tax authorities. The generated numbers were downloaded into the SPARK-Interfax database to check for their validity, obtain information of firms, and apply selection criteria. In total, 10,359 firms were selected with firms being privately owned SMEs from different industries and regions all over the country. After validation of firms by calling their phone numbers, 2,583 target companies were invited to participate in the survey. A standardized questionnaire was developed to assess strategy and organizational environment of firms during the economic crisis. This includes information about firm’s EO, MO, financial capital availability, and impact of crisis on firm performance. Respondents to the questionnaire were companies’ founders and/or CEOs. Overall, 656 questionnaires were returned, and, after cleaning the data, 612 usable responses were utilized in Publication II. These firms employed between 3 and 500 employees with a majority of them being small with fewer than 100 employees. Firms were on an average 13.6 years old, and most of them belonged to the wholesale and retail trade, as well as services and manufacturing industries.

Dataset 3

To address the sub-question about the role of national-level institutions in shaping the EO-performance relationship (Publication III), the data on firms from 41 countries were utilized as a part of the GUESSS 2016 data. The international research project GUESSS, founded by the Swiss Research Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen in 2003, is held every two years.⁴ Since 2016, this project was co-organized by the University of St. Gallen and the University of Bern (Switzerland). For each data collection wave, a comprehensive survey was developed by the GUESSS core team and sent to teams from the participating countries.

The team in Russia was represented by Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg University and the team leader, Prof. Galina Shirokova, who was responsible for data collection in Russia by distributing questionnaires to students and recruiting national partner universities, and got access to the international dataset used

4 More information about the GUESSS project is available at: http://www.guesssurvey.org/

in this study. The author participated in the project at the stage of national report writing.

The GUESSS project aims to systematically study entrepreneurial intentions and activities of university students across different countries. An essential part of the survey is devoted to assessing characteristics, strategic behavior, and performance outcomes of established businesses. The information about a firm’s EO is included in the dataset of 2016, which was collected from 50 countries (122,509 responses). This large-scale cross-country data is particularly suitable for empirical examination of the relationship between EO and firm performance across national contexts, and the extent to which this relationship is moderated by a national-level institutional environment.

Reflecting the study’s objective, the data for Publication III was a sub-sample of the active founders who were running their own business (10,820 responses). Despite some criticism of the usage of student samples in management and entrepreneurship research (Smolka et al., 2016), recent studies have shown that student entrepreneurs could be compared to expert entrepreneurs for decision-making (Politis, Winborg and Dahlstrand, 2012; Shirokova et al., 2017). The data are based on student entrepreneurs who answer about their businesses; however, it does not provide companies’ identifying information to enable verification of their suitability, which is reflected in the limitations. After cleaning the data, it accounted for 6,389 usable responses from 41 countries. Regarding a firm’s characteristics, a majority of them were small (having between 1 and 111 employees) and young; they were operating on an average for 2.1 years since their foundation. The most prevalent industries firms operate within are the wholesale and retail trade, advertising/design/marketing, and information technology and communication.